Stephenie Meyer Quick Links

The bonus material for the 10th anniversary of the release of ‘Twilight’ sees the characters’ genders reversed.

Stephenie Meyer has created a new story as part of the bonus material for the 10th anniversary edition of Twilight. The 41-year-old author has swapped the genders of her main protagonists. In her original books, Edward is a vampire who falls in love with a female teenage mortal, Bella. In her new story, Meyer has made the female character (Edythe) the vampire and her love interest a teenage male (Beau).

Lionsgate is pulling a Harry Potter with its Twilight spinoffs, but they have a good idea behind it.

The Twilight Saga is set to return with five short films this year. No, no, no, don’t click away just yet, we promise this will be worth it. The films, set to premiere on Facebook, will be a collaborative project between Lionsgate and Facebook, giving five aspiring female filmmakers the chance to create the films.

Kristen Stewart will be among the panelists, charged with selecting the five best filmmkers.

Entertainment Weekly reports that the five creators will be selected by a panel, which includes the films' star Kristen Stewart, The Twilight Saga author Stephenie Meyer, Kate Winslet, Octavia Spencer, Julie Bowen, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, producer Cathy Schulman and Frozen co-director Jennifer Lee – so all in all, a group of cool women, who know a lot about film.

What’s that? A giant global corporation has ignored the creative integrity of the people it profits from in order to maximize gross income, potentially alienating future authors and jeopardizing their commerce? That’s right, Amazon is all-aboard the fan fiction train, next stop: avoiding tax on the profit it makes from it!

This means a fan of a book, like Twilight for instance, could write a story with Bella, Edward and Jacob, and sell it back to readers via the Kindle store. That is, if Stephenie Meyer signs up to it, which, considering the size of the brand, she probably won’t. It also means the latent homoerotic relationship between Star Trek’s Kirk and Spock, exhibited so often by completely normal fan fiction writers, can now be a nice little earner for them. Nice that.

It’s surprising just how many authors are signing up to let their work be taken by a fan and moulded into something else. Amazon reckon the "Kindle Worlds" project is a good thing for writers, as it is "an entirely new way to monetise their valuable franchises [and] it allows them to extend their worlds with new stories and characters and more deeply engage with existing fans".

While the premise of this sci-fi thriller feels like yet another of Stephenie Meyer's two-boys-one-girl fantasies, a superior writer-director and cast make this is a stronger film than Twilight. The plot may be rather contrived, but the actors bring out some sharp intelligence in the script to make it surprisingly involving.

It's set in a future time after aliens have snatched the bodies of 90 percent of humanity, eliminating hunger, crime and the environmental crisis. But secret pockets of rebels have avoided being possessed by these white mini-jellyfish beings, and are seeking ways to fight back. So when the alien being Wanderer is implanted in the resistance leader Melanie (Ronan), the head Seeker (Kruger) hopes to infiltrate her memories and find out where they're hiding. But Melanie is stronger than anyone thinks, managing to remain conscious alongside Wanderer, winning her to the rebel cause. She heads to the human's secret desert hideout, where Uncle Jeb (Hurt) renames her Wanda and accepts her into the fold. But some humans aren't so sure, and the Seeker is hot on her trail.

It's deep in this maze of rather too-sophisticated caves that the crinkled romance develops, as Melanie is reunited with her boyfriend Jared (Irons), but doesn't want him kissing her when Wanda is in control of her body. Then Wanda falls for Ian (Abel), and their kissing makes Melanie even more furious. Yes, like Twilight, this film seems to think that kissing is the ultimate expression of human connection, giving this film a quirky four-sided love triangle at its centre. Meanwhile, the more thriller-like plotline builds as the Seeker gets ever closer. All of this is played out very seriously, with almost no offhanded humour or humanity, but the emotions are intriguingly resonant.

The Host had its red carpet premiere in Los Angeles last night (March 19, 2013) and the writer of the books that are being turned into the movies, Stephanie Meyer, has been talking it up, explaining that it will be quite a different turn of direction from the previous series she was responsible for – Twilight.

Saiorse Ronan is the 18 year-old star of The Host

Yep, of course Meyer is the writer behind the Twilight books which went on to make a bucket load at the box office, but she insisted last night in LA that this was going to be a different turn for her, telling Reuters "If (fans) go into it wanting a repeat of Twilight they probably will not be thrilled, because it is not. It is a very different kind of story. I think if they are willing to go on a new ride with me and try out something a little different than I think they will really like it."

Stephenie Meyer – author of the hugely popular Twilight series - has not read 50 Shades of Grey, and it doesn’t look like she’s going to, either.

The 39-year-old has made comments about the raunchy franchise before. Talking to The Guardian, Meyer said: "Erotica is not something I read. I don't even read traditional romance. It's too smutty. There's a reason why my books have a lot of innocence." This is probably due to the fact she’s a committed Mormon, and married her husband when she was 21. She said her idea of true love "is different than what a lot of other people do," adding: "There's nothing selfish about true love. It's not about what you want. It's about what makes them happy." Meyer has been rather outspoken about the books by E.L James, but that’s probably because people compare it to her vampire novels, calling 50 Shades the ‘Twilight for adults’. "I haven't read it. I mean, that's really not my genre, not my thing," she said to MTV back in the summer of 2012. "I've heard about it; I haven't really gotten into it that much. Good on her — she's doing well. That's great!"

With a flurry of bonkers action and cross-species bonding, The Twilight Saga surges to a howling conclusion that has more attitude in it than all four previous films put together. There's no time for moping now, as things build to a crescendo of girly emotion, portentous pronouncements and more decapitations than you can count. Even the plot itself gets rather playful.

We pick things up immediately after Part 1 ended: Bella (Kristen) is getting used to her heightened vampire senses and intense lovemaking prowess with her new husband Edward (Pattinson), while their daughter Renesmee (Foy) ages alarmingly from infancy to about 10 in just a few weeks, overseen by soulmate-protector wolf-boy Jacob (Lautner). But the ruling Volturi boss (Sheen) has been misinformed that Renesmee is a feared immortal child, rather than a rare but apparently harmless human-vampire hybrid. As the Volturi army heads to Seattle to obliterate Edward and the Cullen clan (including Facinelli, Reaser, Greene and Lutz), the Cullens draft in an army of their own from around the world.

Essentially the film is a long build-up to a big showdown, as everyone jostles for position. This makes the film feel much pacier than the earlier chapters, as we jump from scene to scene while the Cullens prepare for the onslaught. Many scenes involve the introduction of the vampires who support their effort, and like X-men many have some sort of supernatural ability that can aid the fight. Thankfully, director Condon refuses to take this nonsense seriously, and has quite a lot of fun with the various story elements. He also gleefully ramps up the tetchy interaction between Jacob and Edward, and even makes a joke about the fact that actors playing vampires must wear red contact lenses.

The stars of The Twilight Saga walked down the red carpet for a premiere of the franchise for the last ever time last night (November 12) and there was no surprise which two of the cast were taking center stage, with Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson making a public reunion after promotional trails that have seen them take on different territories. The pair looked happy to be in each other's company, memories of their acrimonious summer seemingly all but forgotten as they lit up the red carpet in Los Angeles.

We were wondering how long it would be. Just days before the final Twilight movie hits cinemas, author Stephenie Meyer has refused to rule out writing more of the vampire-romance novels. It's likely that fans haven't seen the last of Bella and Edward yet, and we're not just talking about the rumoured television adaptation.

Speaking at a press junket for the new movie, Meyer was quoted by The Metro as saying, "I wouldn't say no absolutely (to more books). I'm not going to do it today, but I don't know how I'm going to feel in five years.I planned out where it would go for a couple more books... there are other characters who I think would have a lot of voice in those coming stories." However, the author did make it clear that she would not be tempted to hand the reins over to somebody else - in the same way that George Lucas sold LucasFilm to Disney - explaining, "I'm a hands-on mum and these characters feel like my kids. I just don't know if that's ever something I'd be fine with. But again, in 10 years, who knows." Last week it was announced that Lucas had sold his brainchild to Disney for a cool $4 billion, with the studio putting plans together to make further Star Wars movies. Meyer's comments come just a month after JK Rowling admitted to the BBC that she wouldn't rule out writing further Harry Potter novels.

The tracklisting for Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 has finally been announced, via Yahoo and amongst the highlights of this latest instalment are Green Day, Passion Pit and Ellie Goulding. Green Day, obviously are a pretty big coup for the compilers of the soundtrack (Summit Entertainment release the album in collaboration with Chop Shop Records and Atlantic Records) and the band’s bass player Mike Dirnt spoke to Yahoo! about contributing their track ‘The Forgotten’ and said “When we were asked to be part of the 'Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2' soundtrack, we readily agreed because the films are an insane cultural phenomenon, and we have always been impressed with the way the 'Twilight' soundtracks are so carefully curated.”

Ellie Goulding’s track will draw attention to the soundtrack too, not only because it’s an exclusive track but because it’s the first track that she’s released, to have been produced by her new boyfriend Skrillex. Following in the vein of slightly kooky female artists, St. Vincent and Feist have both contributed a track; both will undoubtedly make an excellent accompaniment to the dark, moody atmosphere of the Twilight movie.

Coming from a slightly more mainstream angle, Christina Perri returns with ‘A Thousand Years (Part Two)’. Naturally, it’s a follow on from her theme to the first installment of Breaking Dawn and Perri was almost a dead cert to be included on this final musical bow. She’s such a fan of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga that she has the word ‘Bitten’ tattooed on her, in the Twilight font. She told Yahoo! “I am so honored and excited to be involved again in this final film and soundtrack.” She revealed that part two of the track will be different but hasn’t yet said how and the tracks are yet to be released. “It's not the same [as the original]... you'll just have to wait and see how,” she teased.